My dad and I were so different we did not and never could’ve understood one another, but he was a mechanical genius (as I alluded to in my post below). In a different timeline, he should’ve been doing much bigger things.

One time I saw him repair MacGyver style the single mother’s car who lived down the road using wire from a clothes hanger, some rubber, a few oddball screws he had around, and some kind of metal bond stuff. It was going to be a $400 repair at an actual shop — a whole damn lot for a single mom in North Florida in the 1980s. This was around 1985, so that’d be $1,200 now.

He charged her, “Tell some other people who have a bit of money or something to trade to come see me when they have car trouble.” And it worked! I know of at least half a dozen people she referred. There were probably more. My dad was no saint at all, but he did try to help in his own way.